


who lives, who dies (who tells your story)

by zanykingmentality



Category: Mystic Messenger (Video Game)
Genre: 707 | Luciel Choi's Route, F/M, Introspection, Past Child Abuse, Spoilers, abuse of descriptive language, i named the mc jiyeon feel free to fight me, title credit to the musical hamilton
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-20
Updated: 2017-01-20
Packaged: 2018-09-18 17:07:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9394883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zanykingmentality/pseuds/zanykingmentality
Summary: Behind sunlit smiles is the exhaustion of all-nighters and pressure on your life. You wait and whisper and think,someday.Things will be okay.





	

**Author's Note:**

> would like to apologize in advance i am sorry for seven's suffering i love him and someday he will be happy but i guess today is not that day 
> 
> i named the mc jiyeon, and i plan to keep this name for all future mysmes fics even though they're not the same person just because i don't want to have to find a new name every single time lol sorry 
> 
> as usual unbeta-d, so forgive any lurking mistakes !!

When you close your eyes you see red hair and small voices, green eyes and long fingernails scraping into your back. You hear the thud of a bottle being roughly dropped on the tabletop, long stained with the remnants of past spills and rejection pressed a bit too thin. And when your eyes open, it’s to the light of green text and red warnings, and Vanderwood is shaking you, saying, _Get up, you have work to do_ , and you guess that’s it, that’s life for you now.

You don’t often bring up the CCTV feed for Rika’s apartment. All it does is stir up painful memories and makes you remember an _end_ , when you didn’t believe in what you stood for but you had no choice, when you tried hard and did everything to make sure you could bring _him_ home, not to the home he knows but _home_. You dream of the day you quit this job and see him again, but those are only dreams for now, dreams you won’t see unless you work and work and work.

But now you rewind through four hours’ worth of video, and precisely at the mark indicating half past noon, a girl inputs the password, shifting her weight from foot to foot, glancing at her phone. _She’s pretty_ , you notice, in that dull way you notice a lot of things now, but you can’t stop the erratic _thump-thump_ of your traitorous heart that makes you _care_.

You can feel everyone’s trust pounding beneath your ribs, and you want it to _stop_ because you’re not trustworthy, you’re _dangerous_ , but _useful_ , and that’s all they need right now, isn’t it? Dangerous but useful and cheerful and normal. That’s 707!!

“How you do any work in this mess is beyond me,” Vanderwood grumbles, pinching a the edge of a half-full bag of Honey Buddha Chips between his index finger and thumb and accidentally spilling its contents over the floor. A string of colorful words unfurl and crack against the quietness of an empty house.

“Nooo!!” You wail dramatically. “My precious Honey Buddha Chips!! Gone, forever!!”

“Stop,” Vanderwood snaps, his eyebrows furrowed in affectionate irritation. Or, at least, you interpret it as affectionate, because it gives you something more to annoy him about. “Ugh, get back to work. I can’t believe I went through all that training to act as your maid…” Vanderwood’s mumbling fades off into background noise as you swivel back to face your computer, watching the CCTV feed again. Open a fresh bag of Honey Buddha Chips from the box next to your desk. Continue work as usual, with the face and memory of a girl your age lingering in the back of your mind.

It isn’t until you have to run to her that you really think about how you feel at all, light rain pitter-pattering against the windshield of your car, and you realize the elevation of your heart rate at the sound of her voice could mean something _other_ , something you don’t want to give yourself, something you don’t deserve. Your phone buzzes on the passenger’s seat, busy with calls from Vanderwood, from your boss. And even though you feel free, you feel _trapped_ , and your breathing is heavy for a moment before you regain your focus.

You have to force the door open, racking your brain for a passcode you should've forgotten long ago but for some reason you know you haven't. “Jiyeon,” you rasp, voice ragged from the running you did to get here, to ensure they wouldn't know where she is, but when you get inside you almost fall to your knees at the crushing weight of _guilt_. You weren’t fast enough, too late too late _too late_.

The white-haired man’s mask falls and your crumbling world screeches to a teetering halt; it's _him_. But _why_ , you don't understand; you were told something very different.

(In the back of your mind, you can hear V’s voice saying, “We’ll take care of him. He’ll be safe.” You wonder if Yoosung is right, if V really has been lying to you.)

 _Saeran_ , your mind whispers, and the look of adulterated rage he levels you with is almost enough to make you stumble back into the doorframe, but you stand your ground, because now is your time to protect the newest member. You will _not_ fail anyone else, not after you failed him.

“Traitor!” Saeran’s accusations ring in your ears, even as you try to make sense of the scene in front of you. Keep talking, and maybe someday you’ll get the answers, but it’s like a dead-end: he won’t listen to you, won’t answer you, won’t _understand_. Your promises, broken and shattered like the glass at your feet. But you're quick, and clever, and you didn't go through training for nothing, so he leaves through the window and you watch him go.

You can feel your heart, patched and broken but very much beating, slow in your chest with the warmth of her trust, but you push it away because right now you deserve only the coldest of winters, the kind that never melts no matter what you do.

“Seven,” she whispers, and it's all you can do not to tell her, _It’s Saeyoung, Saeyoung Choi, that's who I am,_ and you don't because once she knows you’ll have to tell her the story, and it's not one you want pity for. It's not one she'd want to hear. Jiyeon is auburn hair and eyes like a mid-autumn shower, warm and bubbly and friendly, everything you want but don't deserve.

He's in danger, she's in danger, they're all in danger unless you get your act together and figure out what the _hell_ is going on, and when exactly you were lied to.

“You can't tell anyone about what happened,” you hear yourself say, except it doesn't sound like you; it sounds like a voice you've heard but can't quite place, like a voice detached and on a screen. But she nods anyway, because despite everything she _trusts_ you, and you have to wait until the darkness of night to claw at your hair and curl up with choked sobs and breathless tears.

“Be careful of the glass,” she says, and you almost snap at her because that's the _least_ of your worries right now, but still her worry strikes a chord in your heart that it _shouldn’t_.

And then it’s dark, and she’s half-asleep, half watching you, and every time she nods off you feel your muscles tense. Until she’s finally asleep and you stare at the green light blaring from the screen in front of you, waiting. Waiting for the numbers to code themselves, for green eyes still vivid in memory to come back to you, for a day when you can say _I love you_ with no fear of rejection or being erased again. But numbers don’t code themselves, what’s lost can’t be regained, and love is just a fantasy for you, something worthy of storybooks but not the life you live.

You breathe, feel the anxiety churning in the pit of your stomach, and _breathe_. Because you’ll never be free, because you’ll always be bound by something. But you can breathe, and breathe, and hopefully enough breaths and enough moves will take you to where you need to go to set things right.

**Author's Note:**

> i am so sorry seven let me love you


End file.
